priyodit Reviews (17)

Khufiya (2023)

Not a typical Vishal Bharadwaj movie: the end was underwhelming

[8/10 · 5 October 2023]

The title gives it all. Tabu rises above others here. Wamiqa Gabbi works well for the role she was given (which was either written a bit weak, or she is a bad actress). Ali Fazal is good as cold and calculative man, which is expected as he is playing an agent here.

However, the main villain of the movie is the story. The story took quite some time to build up, and yours sincerely felt it to be engaging. However, the end seemed rushed. If the story took so long in building up, then it should have an equally satisfying end. It's something like giving a proper closure.

Vishal Bharadwaj probably could have spent more time in writing down the end of story well, and spent a less time in other parts of story where the romantic angle between Tabu and her reportee is shown. Probably, this could be one good movie with some dose of emotion and lots of calculation like Fredrick Forsyth's novels.

Lomad (2023)

A Smart and Engaging Thriller

[10/10 · 16 September 2023]

Watched this movie yesterday. I had gone with high expectations. It was because from the trailer, I could make out that movie had shoe string budget and black and white, just like Nolan's "Following". The good part of the movie is- it does not let you guess the turns which come at later part of the story but instead, keeps you along with itself all along the journey.

To me, it gave me the same pleasure as if "12 Angry Men" (constrained space) was mixed with "The Perfect Murder" in a Hitchcockian way (where some psychological angle is shown). This movie contrasts with Ram Gopal Varma's "Jungle" which presented the gruesomeness of human nature. Here, the jungle brings out not the aggressive but the manipulative and vulpine nature of people.

The director reminds me of Nagesh Kukunoor's style of film making where the scenes are crisp with realistic expression and skin tones being natural shade.

As a writer, the director did a fabulous work in imagining how each scene would unfold and has kept all the strings tied.

The actual hero of the movie was not only director but also the cameraman who almost always chose the right angle, except for one shot when the camera was too close to the faces. However, since this is a one shot movie, this error can be ignored.

This movie is recommended.

Albela (1951)

passable movie

[5/10 · 21 November 2020]

The story is a cliche. A now successful man returns to find that the very family he cared for is now in ruins, and how he saves them from their miseries. Master Bhagwan directed and wrote the film's script himself. It, thus, comes as no surprise that he is the hero of the movie.

However, a short plump hero with expressions looking like a penguin is not your average day to day hero. The expressions of others are good, and the songs are beautiful. The songs however are too many in number. If someone is not speaking anything, they are singing. The songs slow this movie.

This movie would have been a masterpiece if some other hero was chosen wisely. To me this movie seems overrated.

Breathe: Into the Shadows (I) (2020– )

Extremely slow

[1/10 · 10 July 2020]

1. The story is too slow! 12 episodes when this could be easily closed in 6 episodes. 2. Abhishek Bachchan is still learning to act. I am sure school children emote better than him. 3. Plot has too many holes. 4. Amit Sadh is good as a hot tempered cop.

Pataakha (2018)

Pataakha: A Freudian Feud

[9/10 · 30 September 2018]

TL;DR: Go and watch it in theaters- it's worth watching at least twice.

We know what happens in symbiosis- two organisms live together because the both benefit from each other, for example, hermit crab. We also know what happens in case of rivalry- only one of the organisms survives, other has to either go away or wither. Much of it happens in real world, to people too.

Acidophiles are a group of organisms which thrive in acidic environments. Similarly, some people too enjoy the bitterness of their world. Pataakha is a story of two feuding sisters, who can not stay away from each other, meeting only to fight. It's not a verbal duel, but one which involves throwing each other into cow dung, pulling out their hair, and fighting literally tooth and nail.

The women loved creating ruckus subconsciously to the extreme, that each other's absence would render one mute and other deaf, in a Freudian way.

We thrive in the environment for which we are built. The goodness of environment doesn't necessarily mean its suitability for the dwellers. The owls wait for the night, and so does the night love their hoots. One without the other is too silent, too dark.

Race 3 (2018)

Race 3 is Soldier reborn

[1/10 · 23 June 2018]

I went through Race 3.

1. The Race series was never about culture (or Sanskar, the batten of which is passed from Alok Nath to Ramdev, to finally Salman Khan). 3 (Race without Saif is not Race) is at best, a rehash of Soldier. In fact, why Bobby Deol accepted this role has exactly the same reason as to why Amitabh enacted Gabbar as Babban in RGV ki Aag. Soldier made Bobby, and Sholay made Amitabh a brand. They both couldn't let go of this golden opportunity to play the villains in their respective remakes. Blinded by emotions, they didn't see that this animal is not Soldier or Sholay, but some other rabid animal.

2. It's not only Bobby Deol who was bad- It's Salman too, whose writing is bad. Remember Veer? He wrote it, and here he's the lyricist.

3. Saif, having the royal upbringing behaves in a cheap way. In contrast, Salman, who comes from the family of bards, bar dancers, and poets, tries to behave royally. Honestly, Salman should retain his cheapness, for, royalty doesn't suit him.

Rating: -50000 / 5 (the negative signifies here that when Salman would do 10000 5/5 movies, he'd finally get 0/5).

Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya (1998)

Fool's Paradise

[7/10 · 12 November 2015]

**May contain Spoilers** Sometimes, comes a movie which has a bit of innocence added in almost all of the characters. Sometimes, the innocence also brings foolishness. You may laugh at the people, but eventually forgive for they don't know what they are doing. Suraj (Salman Khan) and his pals are no good at studying, and spend most of their time loitering in campus, where Muskan (Kajol) is about to take admission. They cross paths and finally fall in love, till Vishal (Arbaz Khan in slightly better acting than his recent years) tests Suraj and Suraj fails to pass the test. Where the story looks cliché, it makes up with a lot of eyeball rolling by Salman Khan and some pretty good acting by Kajol. The quirks and eccentricities make you smile, but you often feel the director created the situation even more quirky. The script writer tried hard to make things exciting, but sometimes, he failed. The zaniness of Jim Carrey is what the film aspired for, but the script failed.

The best thing in the movie is the song O O Jaane Jana, which sounds fresh still, and I think Salman Khan had a lot of inputs for the movie.

Summary: can watch it once to soothe your neurons, can watch it once more (just because!).

Hero (V) (2015)

Multiple Choice (Choose as many as you find correct):

[3/10 · 12 September 2015]

1. the rating is complex number -10-10i, -10 for truly mediocre direction, and -10i (where i = square root of -1) for the best acting i could imagine.

2. If pouting was cute, Donald duck would be the best heroine available.

3. Sooraj Pancholi, meet Acting. Acting, meet Athiya Shetty!

4. Let's make our children so capable, that they don't get into industry like this, made fun of, and booed by the audience.

5. The only criteria for love in this movie was that hero was hunk. Replace him by me, and the heroine would run away at the speed of light.

6. Subhash Ghai : Hero :: Ram Gopal Varma : Aag

7. Sanjeev Kumar was a great actor, when he was fooling around in Hero (1983), he still felt graceful, unlike the joker here, who looked like retarded baboon.

8. Thank you Subhash Ghai for brutally detaching me from my good childhood memories. now the only memories left are those of oily crispy potato chips and gold spot soda bottle being sometimes given to me in the theater.

9. As per my theory of quality of art vs pleasure/thrill obtained, this movie falls in the exact trough of the curve. truly a median in all senses.

10. the most famous dialogue is "Control alt delete Maar Na!", as explained, it would delete the password of computer, and also it'd restart it <- CS 101

11. The magic trick by Aditya Pancholi should be shown in loop to people ingested mosquito repellent liquid / phenyl / rat poison. Will help them puke.

12. Missed Amrish Puri. He was master of evil. And Shakti Kapoor. He was a genius.

13. Sooraj Pancholi made Uday Chopra look as talented as Sanjeev Kumar.

14. They should club all songs together at the beginning, so that latecomers to the movie may still enjoy the movie.

15. I wish they reprise the dialogue from Gangs of Wasseypur, with Tigmanshu Dhulia's son in that movie replaced by these two puppets:

Sooraj and Athiya, and Tigmanshu, holding both their chins says, "Beta, Tumse Na Ho Payega! Humko Tumhare Lachhan Theek Nahin Lag Rahe Hain!"

Masaan (2015)

When the direction and acting take over the story

[8/10 · 1 August 2015]

It's a movie where the narration is the story composed of actors as the words. When the words are chosen accurately, the story becomes beautiful.

**Achtung: Spoilers Ahead**

The death is the end of all emotions. Something, which lacks emotions can never be explained in humane terms. It discomforts to deal with death, and the death means a closure for the dead; for the alive ones, everything else keeps on moving.There lies the gist of masaan.

Whether the Sanskrit teacher using a kid to gamble, so that he can pay to the blackmailer a sum of money, or the final year polytechnic student, who ends up burning the pyre of his beloved, they all have to live, even when living gets tough. The internal conflict to let go of the dead ones is like the flying sparks of the flame, rising, and burning and then finally, going away, or like the water in the Ganges, which deposits the silt it has been carrying from past journey, only to get sober in the way, and vast on the ghats of Allahabad, where it meets Yamuna. The director brings this up again and again, even in the song "tu rail si", which compares the girl to the train and the boy to the bridge, and though the train sends vibes across the bridge, the train eventually has to pass, while the bridge continues to remain there, and many times, in the scene beyond, where a bridge is shown. Or when the boy throws the ring of his beloved into the river, only to realise he has let go the last of her, and frantically diving in it, just not to find it.

Like the girl who was smitten by Shayari of ghalib, it's a movie which is a canto of narration, with the pauses and nuances being the frames, the bridge and the river, which flows only one way.

Return of Hanuman (2007)

Mathology Meets Matrix

[8/10 · 20 January 2008]

The movie starts on a note of matured Lord Hanuman seeing the well being of earth, and deciding to take avatar in regular human form. He is made to "sign a contract" by Lord Brahma, the creator, who let him go.

The story had a pace in the beginning, with a mystery about the "other side of the wall", but later on, it died in the monotony of the plot in the later half.

Even with a dragging second half, the movie has a freshness of concept and a right mix of modernity and mythology.

The songs are not catchy though, but the scenes are impressive. This movie marks the start of CG era in India, with lots of fresh concepts.

This movie gives a message about pollution control in the end, which sounds a bit out of place, but could have been improvised.

Bottomline: Watchable movie

My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves (2008)

Nah! not that good

[5/10 · 20 January 2008]

I remember a film named Julie was a flop, but it gave rise to a star in music direction, Rajesh Roshan. Similarly, this movie too showcases a talented actor Nikhil Dwiwedi, who gets well in the role of Anthony Gonsalves.

This is the story of Anthony, a bartender working in a bar, and an orphan, raised by Father of a church (played by Mithun Chakravarty). He has a dream of acting in a movie. He gives an audition and bags the role amidst tough competition. There, he meets the assistant director of the movie (Amrita Rao) and falls in love with her.

He has a godfather in underworld who he has witnessed in a crime. The plot thickens, with police after Anthony to become a witness, which he doesn't want to, because he loves his godfather, and the gang lord, for whom his godfather works wants Anthony dead.

The plot is okay, but a bit typical for Hindi movies. The songs are okay, with Himesh Reshammiya merging his sounds with Pritam, which sounds good in "Tum Mile" and Pritam does a good job in "Allah Beli".

Amrita Rao is a good actress, but her scope in this movie is not enough.

Pawan Malhotra as the godfather is impressive and so is Anupam Kher as a gang lord. He looks dangerous.

Bottom line: Timepass movie, better rent the DVD than going to the theater.

Kabrastan (1988)

Genre: Horrible

[15 February 2007]

This movie, if watched seriously is Horrible, at best, can be watched with soda cans and friends, sitting there and Laughing (i gave it 10/10 for that)....

The story is as murky as it could be. Bang Bang!! Someone's (un)dead. The amorous man returns from the grave to avenge his death from The murderer, his wife and kith and Kin(?) This is how bollywood movies are supposed to be, a formula, put some actors (cheap is the best mantra works always) like Rana Jung Bahadur (whose prime was a tele- soap Tara), put some songs, filmise them on some random locales, and you have kabrastan (name it anything, won't make a difference), add some love, some action and some blaring music. We are done.

Kabrastan is best served chilled with Cola cans. Garnish it with Pop corns.

Too good a time-pass.

Gunda (1998)

a movie worth seeing

[10/10 · 6 April 2006]

It's a movie with no upper bound in comedy, though it wasn't meant to be so! We have a small town coolie Mithun as Shamkar working in a airport terminal, living his life coolly with his pet monkey, sister and father, who is a hawaldar in Police. In the same city are two gangs who are bitter rivals and in the first 30 minutes of the movie, they brutally (and in a comic fashion, by reciting all sorts of poetry) kill each other and rape each other (and sisters of their rivals) until only one ganglord Bulla (Mukesh Rishi) and his henchmen remain, the other group is eradicated. In this crass- fire, our main protagonist Shankar gets entangled when he helps the police nab the murderer (Rami Reddy) of a mantri. Bulla gets infuriated and vows to give a gruesome end to Shankar and his family. So how does he do it? By raping (!) Shankar's sister and killing his dad mercilessly. Needless to say, our coolie then was busy somewhere and when he saw this, he decided to avenge the death of his father and his sister, but only after gyrating his now broadened hips with his lady love who is the sole support of his life. So our coolie successfully drives ferrari and flies helicopter and then finally after a lot of gruesome dhishum dhishum beats the pulp out of Bulla and sends his henchmen to seventh heaven, literally. A special mention to ChuTiya (played with elan by Shakti Kapoor), the impotent brother of Bulla, who wants to have the real fun of life. This character was injected in this whole system so that he could induce some laughter, but no one thought the movie was going to be so hilarious that he would become the vestigial organ of movie, just like the vestigial organ which he wanted to use desperately in the movie! Positive points- A non-family entertainer, defining a bench mark in film industry. Negative points- till now, non encountered- seems that the movie was made flawless, just that the category slipped from action thriller to comedy!

Kuchh Meetha Ho Jaye (2005)

A Nice Pastry, A bad Icing

[7/10 · 7 February 2006]

This movie is one of a kind, the kind which never gets repeated usually in Hindi cinema. You feel like getting in love with This movie, if you ignore the direction part of it. It (the movie) is about a small airport with it's daily routine, and one fine day, a plane gets out of order, leaving a few stranded people on the air terminal. The people are thrown out of their hectic schedules and now have a lot of time at their hand... There's a pilot and an air hostess, The air hostess having a baby of the pilot, A divorced couple with an 11 yr old daughter returning back to their respective destinations (?) after a get together of a day per year schedule, A couple almost on the breakpoint of their marriage, a teenage pair of internet lovers having met for the first time, an Italian NRI wanting an Indian bride, A gujju bhai always on his cell phone, a newly wed couple with an excessively domineering wife, their parent in laws (the widowed father of the groom romancing the aunt of bride!), the airport manager and his assistant with a baggage carrier with a lost hen. A long list of characters and some of them redundant, and some of them wasted! A character who has no role to play in the movie is redundant and a character who is not optimally used is wasted. The gujju bhai, the teacher and the monk (did i tell you about this American "hare rama hare krishna" monk here?) are redundant. Absolutely no use in this story. Arshad Warsi has improved himself a lot from his "Tere Mere Sapne" times. His maturity shows up as an actor (here as a manager), sometimes smiling and sharing a few smiles here and a few grins there, and sometimes as a man who retrospects at his past, when he sees his love Mahima as someone else's wife. He and Sachin Khedekar stand apart from rest of the crew in that small airport. Sorry to say, but Arshad Warsi had more to say in the movie, and Sandhya Mridul (as the air hostess), the less said the better. She had no point in her sad story. And Of course there is this sleeping guardian angel (He is the surprise angle) from whom i had heightened expectations, that, in a flash he would relieve all the miseries of these deserted people, but alas! he joins the wasted group. The Cinematographer has done a good work and Himesh Reshammiya, as a music director excels in delivering a list of good smooth and free flowing numbers, especially Bhool jayenge hum, and a Thumri Number which is played in between. The script is so strong it takes you on her shoulders, even if the direction fails! It is a dreamy movie, watch it with dreamy eyes, you will love it's script, i did!

Sangharsh (1999)

based on the silence of lambs

[6/10 · 22 March 2005]

Loosely based on the flick The Silence of Lambs, this movie was directed by Tanuja Chandra and written by Mahesh Bhatt.

The inner conflicts and the struggle with the outer world and a ghastly past has left Reet Oberoi as a frightened being. She meets dreaded criminal known as Professor in underworld, falls in love with him, and finally triumphs over her conflicts. In the battle between good and evil, the main protagonist, Professor dies fighting with the villain, Lajja Shankar Pandey.

This movie, until interval seems to glue the attention, but rapidly repels after interval, with some fantastic and silly ideas like taking the professor out of the custody of police, and all that which were difficult to digest.

A nice attempt failed in between.

Bottom line: can watch it. 6 out of 10.

Clerk (1989)

Terrible Potboiler

[1/10 · 13 June 2004]

I don't want to be too critical about this movie. There's nothing to be critical at all.

This movie has Manoj Kumar as a clerk, the main protagonist. And this movie is full of comedy ( and yes, I'm being caustic!) and awful scenes. The sequences are obnoxiously written and there's nothing much to do, or say. For example, the scene where Ashok Kumar gets a heart attack, Manoj Kumar plays a patriotic number, and lo and behold! he springs up and starts marching!

Action scenes, are, as if copied from superman, as people keep on flying in the air defying the gravity, and amidst all these flying people, our brave Clerk is fighting against the villains with a machine gun (read Lego Toy Gun!) in his hand.

Bottom Line: Please do watch this movie.... Its one of its kind!

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani (2000)

watchable

[13 June 2004]

Its a movie which tries to encompass love, comedy, and dark comedy. But it seldom happens that all three can be added effectively into one flick.

The movie starts from the light- hearted professional rivalry of Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla, turns into a love story somewhere in the middle, and then turns into a a vitriolic satire on the society, system and law. The strongest part of this movie is the direction (a director ought to be a good story teller and Aziz Mirza excels in it.) and of course, the music by Jatin- Lalit ranges from an average to the Excellent, especially in songs like "aur kya...".

Shah Rukh Khan, in some scenes overacts, while Juhi constantly maintains her performance level, Paresh Rawal is extremely wonderful as the convict, he represents the common man, and steals the scenes from SRK and Juhi. Dilip Tahil and Satish Shah are too good as epicentres of laughter while Johnny Lever is just OK. Bottom Line: A feel good movie.